Gnome Icon Status Report #13 -- To boldly paint what nobody has painted before

[mawarkus t-online de (Matthias Warkus)]

Gnome Icon Status Report
as of January 9th, 2000
by mawa

WHAT'S GOING ON?

Hallo. First of all, let me announce that Kenny Graunke has taken over
maintenance of the Gnome Icons Page, and that it has been moved to
SourceForge. Thanks, Kenny!

I haven't added any new submissions, but a couple of icons have been
fine-tuned. The most important news story in this report is that I've
finally compiled a list of file types that need icons. See below. There's
also a new list of applications that need icons, too.

Anyway, at the GDP, there will soon be a status page tracking the state of
any registered Gnome application's icon. There you will be able to see at a
glance for which application you can liberate your creative force, for
which ones there are candidates available, for which ones the definitive
candidate is awaiting submission and such.

BTW, I hope that I will get at least a hundred submissions after this
report! (Just kidding.)

WHAT HAS BEEN DONE
   
  * Favourites icon improved
  * System monitor icon improved
  * Desktop properties icon improved
  * Multimedia icon rescaled for better loading

MISSING ICONS IN THE FOOT MENU

Submenu icons
   
  * Administration
  * Settings (candidate available)

Games
   
  * gTuring (candidates available)
  * Gnotski

Settings Submenus
   
  * User Interface Options

Settings
   
  * Gnome Edit Properties
  * Save Current Session
  * Session Manager Properties

User Interface Options
   
  * Application Defaults
  * MDI (there was supposed to be a candidate in the making)

Utilities
   
  * Text File Viewer (gless; candidate in the making)
  * GDict (candidate in the making)

Gpenguin seems to have been deprecated.

MISSING ICONS IN THE PANEL CONTEXT MENU

"Add" submenu
   
  * Status dock

Amusements
   
  * Sixty Four Bits

Clocks
   
  * Clock
  * AfterStep Clock

Monitors
   
  * SwapLoad
  * NetLoad (candidate in the making)

Network
   
  * WebControl
  * URL Collector

Utility
   
  * Mini Commander
  * GDict (candidate in the making)
  * Where am I?
  * QuickLaunch
  * bug-applet

OTHER APPLICATIONS THAT NEED ICONS
   
  * memprof (memory profiler/debugger)
  * Gaby (personal database thingy)
  * Gnomoku (Gomoku game)
  * GMath (graphing calculator)
  * Pybliographer (bibliographer program)
  * XMMS Applet (XMMS multimedia player remote control)

FILETYPES THAT NEED ICONS

NB: this is a big and bold list. It contains nearly all the suffixes from
the suffixes(7) man page and more.
   
  * Adobe Font Metrics (.afm)
  * Assembly source (.s, .S)
  * AUTHORS (CREDITS etc.)
  * Automake template (.am)
  * Awk source (.awk)
  * Backup file (maybe this should be done by laying something over the
    backed-up file type's icon)
  * ChangeLog
  * Common Lisp source (.lsp, .lisp)
  * COPYING (GPL, LICENSE... licence files, you know)
  * C++ header (.H, .hh, .hpp)
  * Data file (.dat)
  * lib*db* simple database (.db)
  * Diff output (.diff)
  * DVI (.dvi)
  * Emacs Lisp source (.el)
  * Emacs Lisp bytecode (.elc)
  * FastTracker II module (.xm)
  * Fortran header (.fi)
  * Fortran source (.f, .F)
  * FTP URL (.ftpurl?)
  * generic TeX font (*gf)
  * Ghostscript font (.gsf)
  * Gnome desktop entry (.desktop)
  * incomplete file (template) (.in)
  * .info file
  * INSTALL
  * .it audio file (whatever this is)
  * Java class (.class)
  * KDE link (.kdelnk)
  * LaTeX class (.cls)
  * LaTeX style (.sty)
  * lex/flex source
  * Linux kernel (vmlinuz etc.; there should be icons for other OSes'
    kernels, too)
  * log files (.log?)
  * M4 source (.m4)
  * Makefile
  * Metafont source (.mf)
  * MIDI sequence (.mid)
  * NEWS
  * Nroff source for me package (.me)
  * Original file (.orig)
  * Pascal source (.p)
  * packed TeX font (*pk)
  * Patch (.patch)
  * Perl header (.ph)
  * Perl method (.pm)
  * Perl source (.pl, .perl)
  * Process ID file (.pid)
  * PGP binary data (.pgp)
  * PGP armoured text (.asc)
  * PostScript font, ASCII (.pfa)
  * PostScript font, compiled (.pfb)
  * Python source (.py)
  * Python bytecode (.pyc)
  * README
  * RC (configuration) file (*rc, no suffix)
  * Rich Text Format (.rtf)
  * Scheme source (.scm?)
  * SGML (.sgml)
  * Shell script (.sh; the question is whether this makes sense, since most
    scripts have not got a particular suffix)
  * Stampede package (.slp)
  * Sun audio (.au)
  * Tcl source (.tcl; the same as for .sh goes for this)
  * TeX font metric (.tfm)
  * TeX virtual font file (.vf)
  * TeX virtual property list file (.vpl)
  * Texinfo source (.texi)
  * TODO
  * TrueType font (.ttf)
  * uuencoded file (.uu, .uue)
  * X11 font (.pcf)
  * yacc/bison source (.y)

This should give you all a very big field to work on. I hope to add a
couple new filetype icons every week if everything goes well. Maybe someone
can even think of a nice icon for the file manager. The folder is OK as an
icon, but maybe there is a better idea?

CONFLICTS
   
  * Balsa and TkRat using same icon
  * Gnome PPP, Internet Submenu, XSiteCopy using same icon
  * Printer applet, GULP using same icon

SUBOPTIMAL ICONS

    Bitgrazer
has text, is not shaped
    Glines
could use transparency
    GQview
a logo, not shaped, illegible, too massive
    Logview icon
metaphor is not international
    X-Chat
the new icon is better, but still a logo and not shaped
    Screem
is a logo
    Utilities menus
Swiss Army knife could do with more contrast

I've removed Imlib properties since Gnome will stop relying on Imlib
anyway.

Feel free to comment.

TOTAL

I don't dare to count all the file types I've boldly listed, but other than
that, there are about 35 icons to do. The increase is mostly due to my
adding of applications whose authors have requested that an icon be made
for their babies.

Thanks to all who have contributed.

REMARKS

Send any ideas, remarks or contributions to me as I have now got official
permission to add them to the CVS tree. Have a thorough look at this report
and at the Gnome icons page before painting anything.

Don't compress icons individually when submitting them to me. Either pack
several into a tarball or (preferred) send unpacked PNGs. Zipping a single
PNG file is pointless as PNG compresses internally.

If you've got any nice, big logos for Gnome applications, please submit
them; they'll be needed for Phase 2. Should you have got ideas for
metaphors for yet-to-be-created icons or file types that are not in the
file type list, send them to me.

Please, please, please: If you want to make icons, make icons that are
mentioned in the report as needed. Don't send me another dozen of ZIP drive
icons or of Adobe PDF icons. Do not make a new icon before having checked
whether a candidate exists on the icon page. Thanks.

Last but not least, anyone who submits an icon that makes it into the tree
gets listed in the CREDITS file on the Web page. Now if that's not fame!
BTW, I ponder holding a Gnome Iconathon some day, where the winner (most
valid submissions within a month or such) will not only be publicly
acclaimed, but maybe even get a crate of genuine German beer or a geek toy
of their choice. Stand by :)

mawa (mawa@iname.com)
-- 
THINGS THE WORLD NEEDS MORE OF #3:

Beautifully typeset at-signs.